


After the End

by tanukiham



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: M/M, Post Game, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 12:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanukiham/pseuds/tanukiham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the end, Hawke can't live with what Anders has done, or what he has done to keep him.</p>
<p>And then, he finds something to hold on to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the End

**Author's Note:**

> Originally started for this prompt http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/8469.html?thread=31421973#t31421973
> 
> But then both Hawke and I found hope.
> 
> (apologies to the OP)

The sun is bright and warm, and there are birds calling from the cloudless sky. They are far from the destruction, now, and here in the dunes Hawke thinks he could almost forget about Kirkwall, almost blank out the look of horror and loathing on Sebastian's face when they all realised what Anders had done and what Hawke would not do. 

Almost. But he is a champion, and champions are not permitted the luxury of forgetting anything.

Anders is gathering wood for a fire, chattering brightly about freedom and justice and the future, and Hawke is not listening. The birds scream at him. In Ferelden the birds sang, trilling merrily in the trees, but the gulls and terns of the Wounded Coast only scream and Hawke is sick of them, sick and weary and so very, very tired.

“We could go inland,” Anders says. “Find a nice forest and hide out for a while. I'd like that. Maybe we could try growing our own food. Imagine, the Champion of Kirkwall and his apostate abomination, planting beans.” He laughs, arranging damp driftwood into a pile that would never burn if not for the magic dormant under his skin. That magic. Hawke cannot recall how long it has been since 'magic' became another kind of curse word to him, like 'darkspawn' or 'rutting'. 

The sky is too clear. There should be clouds. There should be rain, not a thunderstorm but a long, steady drizzle, to wash everything in grey and maybe, maybe that would help with the hollow inevitability settling into his bones and stripping him of the ability to feel anything else.

He realises with a shock that he has no idea where Torry is. How could he have forgotten? Maker, what kind of dog lord does that make him? He tries to prise open the wound, to wallow in the grief of another lost friend, but it does nothing.

“What are you thinking?” Anders' smile is like the sun, too bright.

Hawke shakes his head. “Nothing.”

The smile falters. “Come, love. You're always thinking about something. Always something clever going on in your head. Tell me.”

It would be too difficult, so instead Hawke kneels down in the sand next to Anders and his wood-pile and pokes at it until it is a slightly more useful shape. “This is going to smoke.”

“I'll dry it out.” Anders puts a hand on Hawke's knee and squeezes. “Trust me.” He must see something shift in Hawke's face, because he takes in a breath and his brows draw down in that delicate frown that always made Hawke's heart ache. It still does. That at least did not change when the world came crumbling to pieces.

Anders hesitates, then leans in to press a kiss to the corner of Hawke's mouth, and Hawke thinks, yes, he can still feel _something_.

He pulls Anders close and they topple over, the mage (his abomination) laughingly complaining about sand in his hair, but he does not push Hawke away and that is the main thing.

It is not like the first time. It can never be like the first, born out of years of wanting and denial, but it is closer to that than they have had in a long time. They know each other so well now that things unfold neatly without words or awkwardness, but still Hawke feels as though he is making love to a stranger. _I know this body_ , he thinks. _I know this scar, and that hollow, and this muscle that spasms when licked, and this taste, and this hand knotted in my hair_. He tells himself it is the same, but he feels desperate, grasping at something intangible as though he is snatching at a reflection and losing it between his fingers. He cannot hold on to this. This, whatever it is, is gone.

Afterwards, brushing sand out of places sand was never meant to go, Anders seems content. He nestles into Hawke's shoulder and sighs something about the foolishness of doing this somewhere so exposed, where anyone could find them.

“No-one is coming, Anders. Not for us.”

It is not meant as reassurance, but Anders seems to take it that way. The sun is setting. They watch the sky turn pink and apricot and lavender. It deepens into indigo, the stars come out, and it is only the cold that makes Anders untangle himself to light the fire.

“You're quiet,” he says, smiling again. Hawke can remember when he counted Anders' smiles, cataloguing them against the day when he knew (or thought he knew) that Anders would run again and he would have to drink a lot and cheat at cards and take a few beauties to bed to forget about him. “Normally,” Anders says, poking Hawke playfully in the ankle, “I can't shut you up, after.”

“Things aren't normal,” Hawke says, closing his eyes. He can still see Bethany's eyes, burnt into the back of his skull like scars. Poor Bethany.

He has his knives, and his boots, and Anders, bright against him like a brand, but that is all he has and once, maybe a month ago, that would have been enough for him. He would have run, then, and kept running, would have carried his love out of Kirkwall, except back then his sister was still alive and he probably couldn't have left her. Probably. Oh, Maker.

They curl together in the sand, and Anders might feel the weight of his solitude because he's quiet, which is unusual, or which had never been usual between them until the last few months where he had tried so hard to get Anders to talk and Anders would not, refused him, had coiled into himself and built up all the rage and frustration that led them to this. “I love you,” Anders tells him, pressing his mouth to the skin behind Hawke's ear.

“And I love you,” Hawke says, and he means it, but it isn't enough.

He was a _champion_. He was a beacon. He was their hope. And when it came down to it he did nothing, nothing that helped, nothing that ended in anything but _death_. Is that the life he chose, all those years ago when he walked into a hovel in Darktown and felt the pull of furious brown eyes and a mouth full of righteous indignation?

“I love you,” he says again, holding Anders so tight that he squeaks, but lets himself be hugged, fingers clawing at Hawke's hair.

They do it again. It's easy. It burns. And it's the only thing that makes him feel anything and it's _not enough_.

Anders sleeps. Hawke examines his knives and he thinks. Starkhaven isn't that far. Maybe he could find some redemption if he--

He looks down. There's a moth in Anders' hair, a pale flutter of wings, so delicate and foolish. Why do they do that? Why are they drawn to so much light, the light that will only destroy them?

He lifts the moth on one finger, and it's like it's made of glass, tiny and fragile, looking for something brighter than itself to cling to, to belong to.

He blows it away. The moth flutters drunkenly into the air, rights itself, and for a moment he thinks it will fly right into the fire but it _doesn't_. The breeze carries it away into the dark, and then it's gone, and Hawke thinks about fragility, and death, and how easy it is to run into the light.

When Anders wakes, Hawke has already packed up most of their camp. “Morning, sleepy.”

Anders knuckles his eyes and sits up, bleary. “You're up early.”

“Late, really.” Hawke finishes covering their fire. “I hope you weren't keen for tea. We have to get going. Someone might come after us and I'd like to be well away from here by then.”

“Are you really making me get up _now_?” Anders groans, stretching and wincing. “My old bones can't take this sort of thing.”

Hawke snorts, and brushes sand from Anders' cheek. “Those old bones aren't much older than my bones, you twit. No excuses. I _won't_ be caught. Not now.”

Anders catches his hand and holds it, searching his face. “There you are,” he says with some satisfaction.

“And here I'll stay,” Hawke tells him, because for now it's true.

The gulls scream overhead, and the sky is too bright. The dawn brushes Anders' hair with rose and gold, and for now? It's enough.


End file.
